


Definitely Not a Nashville Party

by rivkat



Category: Smallville
Genre: AU, Eight crazy nights, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:35:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rivkat/pseuds/rivkat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for samsom: Old school CLex, Clark's first grown up party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Definitely Not a Nashville Party

Lex knocked, even though they had propped the door open, and the raise of his eyebrow when Clark waved him in said that Clark should not be bringing Smallville practices to Metropolis apartment buildings. Clark grinned back—it’s a _party_ , Lex—and accepted the six-pack Lex held out as an offering. He would have reminded Lex that gifts weren’t required, but it _was_ his graduation party, so he had to be prepared to accept something.

In the kitchenette, Chloe was pulling a tray of little pastry things out of the oven. She glanced over. “Tell Lex hi and I’ll be out in a minute,” she said.

Clark inspected the beer. “Is this, like fifty dollars a bottle or something?”

Chloe blinked, like she was still surprised by how clueless he was. “I read your face, Clark, not the label.” Then she turned to the next batch of appetizers, sliding them into the oven.

When Clark returned to the living room, Lex was seated in the middle of the couch like it was a throne that just didn’t know its place, somehow ignoring the worn patches and the side that bore evidence of its last owner’s cat’s lack of a better scratching post. “I was attempting to be fashionably late, but I don’t seem to have succeeded.”

Clark smiled at him. “That’s why I told you a start time an hour and a half before everyone else.” Lex would have tried to avoid monopolizing Clark’s attention, or at least that’s what he would have said, arriving late and sliding through the crowd like a hot knife through butter—letting them react to him but not reacting in turn. “Now we’ve got at least twenty minutes before anyone else shows up.”

Lex’s face said he didn’t know whether to be annoyed or impressed that Clark had absorbed some management lessons from him. “I appreciate the special consideration,” he said after a moment.

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you, Lex,” Clark told him. There were all kinds of ways that was true, starting from a boy strung up as a scarecrow and going to just last month, when a well-timed donation from Lex had allowed Met U to rebuild the science lab and, just coincidentally, the University’s investigation into the events surrounding the partial disappearance of the earlier building had ceased. He might be all grown up (his parents, smiling and shedding a few tears over his graduation, had said so and he believed them, even if half the time he still felt as uncertain as that kid starting high school all those years ago), but he still needed Lex.

Lex broke his gaze too quickly. Or maybe just in time. Clark was never sure how to say ‘thank you’ to Lex without making it sound like Lex was a favor-dispensing machine. Especially since Clark had kind of treated him that way for the first few years. He’d been a kid, but Lex hadn’t been—well, not quite—and Lex remembered (almost) everything in his little mental ledger.

Lex tugged at his pants to make them settle better around the knees, though as far as Clark was concerned he’d already looked fit for a spread in _Vogue_. “I might not be able to stay long,” he warned. “I have some calls to Tokyo to make—” He didn’t say he’d scheduled them just to give himself an excuse to leave before he wore out his welcome, but he didn’t have to.

Clark nodded, because he’d take what he could get. “Well, we have some time now. Tell me what’s going on.” And he let Lex’s words wash over him—disclosing information that _Wall Street Journal_ reporters, among others, would have trampled other people to hear, but mostly he just listened to Lex’s tone. Nothing but the usual stress; none of the darkness Clark associated with Lionel’s interference. At one point, Chloe popped out to say hi—and say “Carlsburg _Vintage_ , Lex?” which Clark took to mean that the beer had in fact been fifty dollars a bottle—but she knew that Clark had been looking forward to this for weeks, so she didn’t stay long.

Eventually Lex’s explanations for his travels for the past few months, interspersed with observations about various countries and the people therein, slowed down. Clark had no doubt that Lex could continue on, entertainingly, for the whole night if he needed to, but that wasn’t what Clark wanted. “And how are you?” he prompted.

Lex tilted his head, his cloud-grey eyes puzzled. “Isn’t that my line? I’ve been talking for ten minutes straight.”

Given Lex’s tendency to take off on tangents about history, leadership, and occasionally particle physics, ‘straight’ was an overstatement. “And I’m glad to know that LexCorp is doing well. But how are _you_?”

Lex breathed out. The air was suddenly heavy around them, the lights seeming to dim. Lex picked again at the crease over the knee of his pants. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Clark.”

“I just graduated college, Lex. I’m not—I’ve grown up a lot,” which Clark knew was a bad argument even as it came out of his mouth; if he had to say it, that meant he wasn’t showing it. “You and I, we—”

The knock on the door was either ill-timed or a desperately needed rescue. “Your guests,” Lex said, and Clark gave up for the moment, rising to greet Pete and his latest girlfriend. Clark wasn’t even sure what he’d been about to say, but whatever it was, he thought he needed to say it soon, before Lex decided that Clark was so far away from that boy on the side of the creek that he didn’t need to be coming to Clark’s parties to get stared at by Clark’s other friends any more.

In only a few minutes, the apartment was transformed—crowded as a rush hour subway station, ten degrees hotter, and already smelling strongly of beer and pigs in blankets. Clark ignored the roar of conversation and flipped his vision to X-ray (okay, not really X-ray, he’d absorbed enough in his physics class to understand that, but it was a heck of a lot simpler to keep thinking of it that way) until he identified Lex’s distinctive posture. Lex was lounging against a wall as he brought a tumbler of something to his mouth.

Clark sussed out his path and supersped between the other guests until he was behind Lex. “Hey,” he breathed into Lex’s ear, and his stomach clenched in a not unpleasant way when Lex shuddered. Lex’s head was really—smooth, Clark thought. The faint tracery of veins visible below his pale skin seemed so _intimate_ , like Lex was walking around naked.

Lex was turning before Clark could really process that thought.

“I know this isn’t really your kind of thing,” Clark said apologetically. Lex didn’t like the fancy parties he threw himself any better, but Clark knew what Lex would say: they were expected from a man in his position. Clark—Clark was not expected.

Lex looked up—they were so close, Clark had to bend his own neck—and met his eyes, then as abruptly turned his head. “I should be going,” he said, his whole body signalling his withdrawal, Lex somehow, impossibly, curling up into himself while still taking up the same amount of space, like he was making Clark see the armor that everyone else saw all the time.

This wasn’t Smallville. Lex had bodyguards, and business partners, and a world full of people who were willing to change themselves to get his approval. Clark was about to get a press pass and a fulfilling career at the _Planet_ and never need to see Lex at all except if it was at a press conference. He could see it now: Lex standing in front of a room, smiling politely, even calling on Clark when it was his turn, and never really seeing him again.

“Wait,” Clark demanded. The noise of conversation, shifting bodies, and the underlying beat of the music Pete had put on was a wall insulating them from the rest of the world. He didn’t want to be with the others right now, much as he cared for them all (well, almost all; that one guy from their Ethics in Journalism class Chloe had invited just gave him the creeps, and not in a meteor mutant way). He just needed Lex to stay.

Clark tugged on Lex’s arm, urging him down the hallway and towards Clark’s bedroom, away from potential interruptions. They passed June and Ricky, who were making out (Clark had seen that one coming two months ago, and he just hoped that they didn’t try to consummate the relationship anywhere in Clark’s apartment, but especially not in the bathroom; the sink wasn’t that strongly attached to the wall) and paid them no attention.

He let Lex go as soon as he’d shut the door behind them.

“Clark?” Lex asked, a note of warning in his voice.

He stared at Lex. He’d kind of been hoping that Lex would understand what was going on with him; Lex was generally so good with reading his emotions, and Clark could definitely use the help right now.

“Is something wrong?” Lex asked, concerned now. “I won’t ask if there’s something you want to tell me, because I know the answer to that—”

Which was, of course, the heart of the matter. “No, Lex.” Lex got that teeny little line on his forehead that was his version of ‘Bullshit, Clark,’ and Clark hurried on: “I mean, yes. You should ask me.” His heart was pounding the way a human’s would after running a race; he was, he realized, terrified.

A muscle jumped in Lex’s jaw. “Are you feeling all right, Clark?” He didn’t look around for red K, but that was only because he’d never known exactly what made Clark act so out-of-character.

“No,” Clark admitted. “I feel like—Lex, I don’t want to lose you. Your friendship. And the timing is terrible, I should’ve—but you only came because I said I wanted you at my party. And I can’t figure out—I need you to ask.”

Lex swallowed. They’d gotten close enough to touch again, without Clark even noticing. Lex closed his eyes for a moment, hiding himself as best he could. “Clark,” Lex said—no, he _asked_ , a question back in his voice after years of unhappy restraint—“do you want to fuck me?”

It took Clark a few tries to process that. “What?”

Lex was obviously struggling to keep his face neutral, but the shame of it was that he was succeeding well enough that Clark had no real idea what he was thinking. “Here we are,” he waved his hand in the direction of Clark’s bed, “and you seem to want to tell me something important, but you need me to say it. So I did.”

“I thought you were going to ask about my secret!” The words came out louder and higher than Clark really wanted.

Lex raised an eyebrow. “Clark, did you really expect me to believe that you were going to _tell_ me that you’re a superpowered alien, just because I asked again?”

“I didn’t expect you to assume I was—” And then the second shock hit. “What?” Now, he was barely audible. “Lex—”

Lex waited, then pulled back when Clark couldn’t think of anything to add to that. He turned away, running his hand over his head just like they were back in Clark’s freshman year. “Even a blind pig occasionally finds a truffle. Even when everyone around him is saying that it’s an acorn.”

“How long have you known?” Clark’s voice seemed to be coming from someplace very far away from himself.

Lex shrugged, a theatrical gesture. “I didn’t wake up one morning with a revelation. It took me a long time to convince myself, but eventually the evidence became simply too compelling, despite the occasional false leads.”

Clark felt like his chest was caving in. He couldn’t even say he’d _wanted_ to tell Lex, not most of the time—he’d been too scared about what might happen; Lex wasn’t like Pete or any of the others who’d found out, but even they’d all eventually misused the information, and the temptations Lex faced were orders of magnitude greater. But there was a time for faith, and Lex had supported him without knowing why so many times that Clark had been sure that the time had come—and now it turned out Lex had known why, and he hadn’t denounced Clark or whisked him away for study or done any of the things that might have ruined Clark and his family.

“For what it’s worth,” Clark said slowly, wanting nothing more than to put his hand on Lex’s shoulder, just to touch him, “I was actually going to tell you. Tonight.”

Lex swiveled around and scrutinized him, head tilted. He nodded once. “And I was, quite evidently, ready to let slip that I knew.”

Clark took a deep breath. “On a scale of one to nuclear explosion, how mad are you?”

“I prefer to think of it as a cauldron of volcanic lava,” Lex said, completely serious. Clark winced, and Lex’s eyes flickered over his whole body, assessing him the way Lex always did. Clark had never been sure what Lex was looking for when he did that, but it had to be a good sign that he was still doing it, right? “Clark, I’m not going to pretend I’m thrilled to be denied your confidence for so many years, but I made the decision to persist years ago, and I do appreciate that you never gave up on me despite many opportunities to do so, some of which you probably should have taken. In the end, I valued your friendship above your secrets.”

Someone knocked on the door. Clark automatically X-rayed: not June and Ricky, but Tomas and Sal. “You can’t come in!” he yelled. Both of them giggled, but retreated without attempting to break in.

“Tomas lives just down the hall, for pete’s sake!” Clark said with aggravation, low enough not to be heard through the door. Lex smirked, then stopped, probably because he realized that Clark only knew who’d almost broken in on them because of his powers, and Lex might think Clark was rubbing his nose in that.

“Okay,” Clark said, because this was his mess and he’d meant to clean it up. He just had to do things a little differently. Except--“Wait. So, the thing about you and me, I mean me and you. You weren’t—were you?”

Lex didn’t give him any respite, folding his arms across his chest and waiting expectantly for Clark to finish a sentence. Clark felt his cheeks reddening, another vulnerability that superstrength couldn’t avoid.

Oh. So, maybe the way his pulse raced around Lex hadn’t been just the fear of discovery.

Clark gulped. He was immune to bullets, and he’d already survived plenty of humiliation. “If I said yes to your question, what would you do?”

Lex blinked. In that second, he was the boy—younger than Clark was now, Clark realized—who’d gotten Clark down from that scarecrow, and also at the same time a captain of industry, capable of making city-sized decisions in an instant. “I’d take you to bed, Clark.” Pure statement of fact, nothing lascivious about it, except that Clark was nearly immobilized with lust.

Nearly.

“Wait right here,” he ordered, then zipped out into the party, which looked like it was going great. Chloe was the center of a cluster of people hanging on her every word, and Pete was regaling another group with embarrassing stories from Clark’s childhood. “Excuse me!” he called out, loud enough to stop conversation. “I’m really sorry, but the police just called. There’s been a noise complaint, and I’m afraid we’re going to have to end early.”

Chloe opened her mouth, most likely to ask since when the police _called_ about noise complaints, then looked around the room. Since she was in her own way as sharp as Lex, Clark wasn’t surprised when she sighed and said brightly, “Sorry, guys. If you’re not ready to shut this party down, I say we take it over to my place.”

Then it was all grumbling and keys and purses, Clark nearly bouncing from foot to foot as he shook hands and (gently) pounded backs in hugs and accepted further congratulations on his new degree. Pete was the last to leave, dragged bodily by Chloe out the door while he was demanding an explanation. (Clark was thinking of delegating that to Chloe; she’d no doubt put it in words as horrifying as possible, but at least Clark wouldn’t have to hear them.)

Clark took a deep breath, locked the front door, and returned to his bedroom. Lex was still standing right where Clark had left him, hands in his pockets now, as casual as a tiger waiting for prey.

“So,” Clark said, relieved that his voice came out steady, “you were saying?”

Lex stared at him like he’d stared up at Clark on that riverbank, like even after all these years Clark was still the most amazing thing Lex had ever seen. Clark wanted to feel that every day for the rest of his life.

“I’d rather,” Lex said, and closed the distance between them, his hands coming up to rest on Clark’s chest, leaning in with perfect confidence that Clark would support him, “be doing.”

In the event, in what was absolutely no surprise at all, Lex turned out to prefer both at once, talking so filthily that Clark had to kiss him into incoherence just to keep from embarrassing himself.

“This was not how I expected this party to end,” Clark said at last, idly stroking Lex’s back and wondering whether Lex’s mutant-accelerated healing extended to other areas.

Lex raised his head from Clark’s chest. “I certainly hope I exceeded your expectations,” he said dryly.

Clark wanted to tell him not to fish for compliments, but Lex was chronically uncomplimented by anyone he’d take seriously. “You did,” he said. And then, because Lex needed to hear it, “You will.”

Lex growled and rolled them over so that he was on top, and Clark grinned into the renewed kiss. Yeah, best graduation party ever.


End file.
